Google offers free Apps for Work; WD in talks to buy SanDisk; Amazon sues over fake reviews

Google is attempting to attract businesses to its Google Apps for Work product by offering it for free to qualifying organisations. The offer is currently limited to US and Canadian businesses, but may be offered to the rest of the world soon.

Google’s Apps for Work includes email, file storage and sharing, videoconferencing, calendars and document collaboration.

Rich Rao, head of global sales, Google Apps for Work, explained the move in a blog post.

“Nine years ago with Google Docs, we saw an opportunity to build something that would enable people to work together in new ways,” Rao wrote.

“[W]e’re so confident that Docs has all the features you need, without the ones you don’t, that we’re making it even easier to give it a try. If you’re worried about switching to Docs because you still have an enterprise agreement (EA) with another provider, we’ll cover the fees of Google Apps until your contract runs out,” Rao wrote.

And while the offer is only open to organisations in the US and Canada right now, it may soon be available to organisations in the rest of the world.

“If you’re outside the US or Canada, stay tuned — we’re actively working to bring this offer to our global markets as well,” Rao said.

Google has set up a page with more details on the offer.

The page indicates that to be eligible for the offer, a business needs a “qualifying contract for productivity software, such as an enterprise agreement”.

Interestingly, the page specifically mentions Microsoft and IBM enterprise agreements as possible qualifying contracts.

Rao said in the blog post that Google will “even chip in” on some of the deployment costs associated with setting up Google Apps for Work.

Google’s page on the offer clarifies that “Google will pay up to [US$25] per user for one of our partners around the world to help you with your deployment”.

The WSJ has further details on the offer.

Amazon sues over fake reviews

Online retailer Amazon has sued 1114 unidentified people that it claims have provided fake reviews on its US website, according to the Guardian.

Amazon reportedly said in the lawsuit that its brand reputation was being harmed by “false, misleading and inauthentic” reviews.

According to The Guardian, Amazon is claiming that the 1114 defendants in the lawsuit advertised false reviewing services on online freelancing marketplace Fiverr.

Fiverr describes itself as the “world’s largest marketplace for services starting at $5”.

The Guardian noted that Amazon is not suing Fiverr.

Sky News quoted Amazon as saying that “an unhealthy ecosystem has developed outside of Amazon to supply reviews in exchange for payment”.

Fairfax reported that the lawsuit identifies the defendants only by their online handles, and that Amazon is still working to determine defendants’ real names. Fairfax also reported that Amazon is suing for unspecified damages and an order forcing the users to stop writing fake reviews.

Western Digital in talks to buy SanDisk

Flash memory manufacturer SanDisk is in advanced talks to sell itself to hard drive manufacturer Western Digital, according to a Bloomberg report.

The report, which did not name its sources, also said the two companies could reach a deal this week.

Although details of the supposed deal are scant at this stage, Bloomberg did report that two sources had indicated Western Digital is discussing a price of between US$80 and US$90 per SanDisk share.

The report comes about a week after Dell announced it had agreed to buy storage giant EMC for around US$67 billion.